She went out into the garden; her heart grew more and more heavy, and her step slow. Her dress caught upon a branch. It seemed to her that a warning hand held her back. In mysterious dread of choosing the very gloomy path which lay before her, she took another. Her heart beat rapidly, she stood still, resolved to return. Between the trunks of the lindens, the water of the large pond which bounded one side of the Traunberg park shone in the sunset glow. With the gentle murmur of the water mingled the regular strokes of oars. Elsa stood still, she listened. Who could it be? Linda was not home. Elsa glanced at the pond. In a little boat she saw two figures, one, Linda, leaning back in the end of the little skiff, flowers in her hair and in her lap, one hand in the water, an evil light in her eyes, something luxuriantly melancholy in her whole form. Opposite her, with his back to Elsa, sat a man, slender, broad-shouldered, in a light summer suit, with close-cropped hair of that striking light blond which shines like molten gold in the sunlight.
Elsa started back--it was surely Erwin--she turned away, she would see no more--but no--it seemed to her that she must call after him--there--the little row-boat had reached the small island covered with roses which was in the middle of the lake. In the gray-white August twilight she saw the two figures turn into the overgrown thicket of the island--they disappeared behind the bushes as if immersed in shadow.
Elsa was as if paralyzed by a kind of gloomy numbness; a fearful excitement overcame her--she must go--where she did not know, only far, far away from the accursed spot.
She did not think of ordering her carriage, of driving home. She scarcely thought of anything, only moved mechanically on, and instinctively took the path to Steinbach, as an animal wounded unto death seeks its hole to die in.
She groped before her with her hands, she blinked as if blinded by a terrible light, she hit blindly against the trees as she passed, like a bat--she saw nothing but two light figures disappearing amid gloomy shadow. She hurried on and on--at first very rapidly--it seemed to her that she could fly, but she was mistaken. The unrest which raged within her was that of fever, of over-exhaustion, not of unused strength. Soon her feet felt like lead, and a heavy weight seemed resting upon her breast; she dragged herself wearily on like one in a bad dream, who wishes to flee from some monster and cannot. The more weary her body became, the more clear what had really frightened her became to her.
"He and Linda," she murmured to herself, "he and my brother's wife." And with a desperate smile, a smile which condemned faith, hope and love to death, she added, "Yes, everything is possible in this world!"
How good he had formerly been, how loving! The loveliest moments of her married life came to her mind with the sad charm of the irrevocably lost. On she tottered, in her wide-open eyes the wild look which seeks nothing more, which looks away from everything, the look of a being who has seen happiness die. "I was happy," she murmured to herself with unspeakable bitterness.
But soon the poisonous breath of doubt tainted the happiness which had been also. How did she know how false it might have been, whether she had not merely been "considerately deceived"?
Then it seems as if a frost falls upon her loveliest recollections, even upon those which until now she has treasured in the most secret corner of her heart. The past is desecrated--she has nothing more.
She does not think of her children--in this moments he has forgotten that she has children.